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2023, Sentient Archaeologies
This contribution examines a formative historical moment when four major archaeologists from Oxford University (David Hogarth, Gertrude Bell, T. E. Lawrence, and Leonard Woolley) found themselves at the crossroads of empire and espionage during the First World War. Recruited specifically for their archaeological training and fieldwork in the Middle East, they occupied the frontline of military intelligence at the Arab Bureau, advancing British interests and fending off competing powers. Not only were these archaeologists preoccupied with mapping the Middle East and its ancient heritage, but they also devised military strategy, classified peoples, established new borders, and helped forge new subject nations. This blurring of military and academic expertise has long characterised our discipline. I argue that Hogarth and his proteges were high-profile participants in an emergent military-industrial-academic complex that has shaped the development of modern archaeology.
Bulletin of the History of Archaeology
Mircea Babes and Marc-Antoine Kaeser (eds.) 2009. Archaeologists without Boundaries: Towards a History of International Archaeological Congresses (1866–2006). Oxford: BAR International Series 20462010 •
2009 •
The complex and emotive issues surrounding ‘engagement’ by archaeologists with the military have been recently and vocally aired in a number of different professional forums and media. The Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (PIA) forum editor felt that this topic deserved greater illustration – for and by some of the archaeologists involved – as a series of strongly voiced opinions, some informed and some less so, has been expressed on the open weblist of the World Archaeological Congress (WAC). Dr John Curtis, Keeper of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, was approached and kindly agreed to be the PIA Forum Primary Correspondent, as, despite both public and vocal opposition to military action in Iraq prior to the recent invasion, he found himself and his institution playing an active role in attempting to ameliorate the situation regarding further destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage and heritage institutions and working with and alongside the British ...
Papers from the Institute of Archaeology
A response to "Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the Case of Iraq2009 •
The Frontiers of the Ottoman World
War without Frontiers: The Archaeology of the Arab Revolt, 1916–182009 •
2004 •
Díaz-Andreu, Margarita 2004. Britain and the Other: the archaeology of imperialism. In Phillips, R. and Brocklehurst, H. (eds.), History, Identity & the Question of Britain. New York, Palgrave: 227-241. SUMMARY: Britain and 'informal' imperialism within Europe; cultural imperialism beyond Europe: British archaeology in the Ottoman Empire; Colonial archaeology - India; Archaeology as the hegemonic discourse
During the last decades, the strong development of the historiography of archaeology has drawn on post-processual approaches and postmodern attitudes, which have favoured the questioning of the involvement of our discipline in the legitimization of the main ideological, political, nationalist, and colonial trends of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In our view, historians of archaeology should now concentrate their attention on other forms of involvement, more strictly economic and technical. It has indeed been observed that since the creation of modern states, archaeologists have often managed to gain the interest of non-archaeological organs or institutions in order to establish flourishing alliances and to reinforce their own scientific practices – especially in the context of economical and structural upheavals. Relying on the conceptual tools of Science Studies, the analysis of such 'innovative alliances', a promising field of inquiry for the historiography of archaeology's past, offers the opportunity for a better articulation between the history of archaeological ideas and the epistemology of the discipline on the one hand, and the history of archaeological techniques and practices on the other hand. It should also contribute to the development of diachronic perspectives throughout the history of archaeology, from the beginning of modern times up to the immediate past and the present challenges of our discipline. Fundamentally, the critical historiography of archaeological 'lobbying' should eventually contribute to a reflexive approach to sensitive ethical questions such as the current problems of the financing of archaeological research. Résumé L'essor de l'histoire de l'archéologie au fil de ces dernières décennies a tiré avantage des approches post-processuelles et des attitudes postmodernes, qui ont favorisé la mise en question du rôle de notre discipline dans la légitimation des principaux courants politiques, idéologiques, nationalistes et coloniaux des 19e et 20e siècles.
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Relations between Archaeologists and the Military in the case of Iraq2009 •
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Anthropological Archaeology in the Middle East – Past Achievements, Present State and Future Prospects2009 •
2009 •
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